Why I celebrate and why you should too!

Photo courtsey: Swami stream


As the festive season comes knocking in the US, In India its already upon us. We are past Dussera and Karva Chauth and its a couple of days to Diwali, the biggest festival of Hindus. As the big day approaches I just thought of sharing what I'll be doing and what I did last year.

Diwali is celebrated in the honour of Ram, the prince of Ayodhya. This day marks his return from exile after 14 years.

When I was young we used to celebrate Diwali with our extended family and everyone tried to be at home on this particular day. We would light clay lamps and wear new clothes. There would be a feast and lots of pictures and then we would worship Godess Lakshmi, the godess of prosperity. Just the mention of Diwali brings back such precious memories. Well, then I grew up, and for my studies I had to stay away from home fo quite a while. Athough, living in dorm and doing on my own taught me a lot and made me very independent, it also made me very practical. Sometimes too practical for my own good. I now think of everything as how well it fits with my current life, if it doesn't, it goes. And now that I am married and working, time is at a premium and I have scores of things that I want to do everyday, this strategy seems to be best.

Since my husband is also happens to be on the pragmatic side, sometimes together we become too blinded by the reason and logic to notice that there's a part of life that's slipping past. Take last Diwali for instance, it was a working day and must have been little hectic. We had bought some stuff to celebrate, but by the time we came back from work, we were just too tired to celebrate and went on with life as usual.

Its only now that I realise that since we don't have our parents here, its our responsibility to keep up the traditions. I just tried to imagine, what it will be like if we just didn't celebrate Diwali
any year...and shuddered at the thought. My parents had been busy too, but they took time out to celebrate festivals and showed us there importance and in process created lots of sweet memories. Missing a whole year's worth of ocassions would be just letting those opportunities to create memories slip by and wouldnt it be just letting the life slip?

So I commit to celebrate all the occassions that I get an opportunity to celebrate and I urge you to do that too. Doesn't matter whether you're away from your loved ones, living alone or just with your spouse. Look up the calendar, and mark all those festivals that once excited you in red. Bring on the decorations, the nice dress, the food ( doesn't matter if its just the grocery store cake or even bread). Raise a toast to life! Even in the worse of time, if you just look around, you will find a lot to be thankful for.

Live it up! Carpe diem!